


the subject of your dreams

by fearofsilence



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Childhood Friends, M/M, Stonathan Week 2018, Underage Smoking, cliche shotgunning fic with a hint of plot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-07
Updated: 2018-10-07
Packaged: 2019-07-27 19:34:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,469
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16225871
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fearofsilence/pseuds/fearofsilence
Summary: “You told her you’re hanging out with me?”The last thing he needs is anyone from school thinking he and Steve Harrington are having a sleepover. He already gets enough shit from kids like Tommy H. He can’t imagine what it would do to Steve’s reputation.“Relax,” says Steve, coming to stand next to him. “I just said I was busy. I know you think you’re too cool to hang out with me now or whatever.”“Yeah, right,” Jonathan scoffs, and Steve smirks.//title from "Bite" by Troye Sivan





	the subject of your dreams

**Author's Note:**

> This was for Day 6 of Stonathan Week. I wanted to participate a lot more but unfortunately, I've had a wicked case of writer's block for the past almost year and this was all I managed to finish enough to post.
> 
> btw it was really weird writing "Steven" but they're like 6-7 in the first part and it just made more sense to me, so.  
> Inspired by Taylor Swift's "Mary's Song" but with a sad lil twist.

The sun is high and blazing hot as Jonathan sits down beside his mother in the grass. Sweat sticks his hair to his forehead and the back of his neck, and he’s out of breath after chasing his friends Steven and Nancy around Steven’s big backyard. His family just bought a big new house that’s only a few blocks away from Jonathan’s. If he ran through the woods, eventually he’d be home.

His mother smiles at him and hands him a plastic cup filled with water, and he drinks greedily. He hadn’t realized how thirsty he was.

Steven is still chasing Nancy around the yard. Jonathan watches him as he reaches out, trying to grab her and tickle her. His hair is longer than it was last summer. Not like Jonathan’s – Dad made Mom cut his. Steven’s is long though, and a little curly. It flops around when he runs; Jonathan thinks it’s cute.

Nancy squeals as Steven wraps his arms around her waist and tackles her to the ground. Above him, her dad laughs. Both Nancy’s and Steven’s parents sit at a big round table, covered by an umbrella. Jonathan’s dad couldn’t make it.

“Finally caught her,” Mr. Wheeler mutters, taking a sip of his drink.

Mr. Harrington laughs too. “I have a feeling he’ll be doing that a lot for the next, oh, ten years or so.”

“At least!” Mrs. Wheeler, who’s just come out of the house where Jonathan’s little brother Will and Nancy’s brother Michael are napping, sits down next to Mr. Wheeler as he’s talking. “If she’s anything like her mother, it’ll be more like twenty.”

“Oh, hush,” she says, lightly pushing her husband. “You know it didn’t take you that long.”

Jonathan looks up at his mom. She brushes the hair out of his eyes and mumbles something about another haircut, then bends to kiss his forehead.

“How are the boys?” She asks Mrs. Wheeler, and Jonathan tunes them out.

He wonders what they were talking about. Steven chasing Nancy for twenty years? He thinks they’d get too tired before then. It just sounds silly.

He stands up and runs back to his friends, launching himself at them. All three of them topple into the grass, giggling like maniacs.

 

 

Jonathan cuts an awkward figure at fourteen – hunched over, head down. He thinks he makes Steve’s mom uncomfortable, even though she’s known him practically his whole life. She looks at him like she’s suspicious of him. He doesn’t know what to make of it.

Luckily, she doesn’t hold him up for too long and he can escape up to Steve’s room, where his friend is waiting for him. He’s lying on his back on the bed when Jonathan comes in, head hanging over the end. He’s on the phone, so Jonathan quietly hauls his bag over to the corner of the room and takes a seat at Steve’s desk.

The way he’s positioned makes his shirt ride up past his belly button. Jonathan doesn’t mean to look, but his eyes keep being drawn back to the expanse of pale abdomen, sharp hipbones, dark patch of hair leading down into-

Steve drops the phone suddenly, and it clatters into the base on the floor.

“Shit,” he mutters and flips over onto his stomach. He hangs the phone up properly then props himself up on his elbows. “What’s up?”

Jonathan jerks his chin toward the phone. “Who was that?”

“Umm… Amy,” he grumbles. “She invited me to a party tonight, but I told her I was busy with you,” he says, winding his hand up to point at Jonathan. He lifts up onto his knees and starts to stand. Jonathan’s heart skips a beat.

“You told her that?”

Steve pauses. “What?”

“That you’re hanging out with me?” The last thing he needs is anyone from school thinking he and Steve Harrington are having a sleepover. He already gets enough shit from kids like Tommy H. and he can’t even imagine what it would do to Steve’s carefully curated cool-guy reputation.

“Relax,” says Steve, coming to stand next to him. He puts his hands on Jonathan’s shoulders, and he jumps a little even though he saw it coming. “I just said I was busy. I know you think you’re too cool to hang out with me now or whatever.”

“Yeah, right,” Jonathan scoffs, and Steve smirks.

“Go lock the door. I’m gonna roll a J.”

Jonathan does as he’s told, and returns to the end of the bed. He watches Steve work with deft fingers and focused eyes, bottom lip pulled between his teeth. When he brings the rolling paper to his lips, tongue darting out to lick the edge and seal it, he looks up and they make eye contact. Jonathan immediately drops his gaze to the floor.

Before he can even look up again, Steve is sitting beside him. As in, right beside him – so close their thighs are touching, so close their elbows rub when Steve lights the joint. He inhales, blows the smoke out, but doesn’t pass the joint to Jonathan. Instead, he turns to look at him, raises his eyebrows, and waves the joint around. Jonathan nods, reaching for it, but Steve keeps it just out of his grasp.

Instead, he pops the joint back in his own mouth and sucks in another puff. He takes Jonathan’s chin in his hand and keeps him still as he leans in and blows smoke into his open mouth.

When he indicates he’d like to do it again, Jonathan doesn’t protest. This time, he closes his eyes – he thinks Steve does too – and their lips touch. Their lips touch and they keep touching, and Steve doesn’t do anything to stop it. In fact, it almost seems like the smoke is an afterthought because Jonathan was too shocked to catch it and they’ve let it leak out from between them.

But Steve doesn’t care. He just wraps his hand around the back of Jonathan’s neck and pulls him in. Jonathan doesn’t even know how to react at first, but then Steve’s lips start moving against his own and it’s easy to get the hang of it.

They go slow, but his body reacts fast. When he feels Steve tangle his fingers in his hair and tug, he feels it everywhere. He fists his hands into Steve’s shirt, fingertips digging into his waist, trying to pull him closer, pull him over. It works, and suddenly Steve is on top of him, legs slotted together, and he can feel… so much. He feels so warm and heavy and _right_ and-

Steve stops suddenly. “Is something- Shit!”

He swipes at the comforter by Jonathan’s head, getting up quickly and running to the side of the bed. When he pops back up, he has the still-smoldering roach between his fingers and he’s looking at it with utter disappointment written all over his face.

“Mom’s gonna kill me,” he states, resigned, stubbing the roach out and tossing it in the trash.

Jonathan sits up to look at the burn mark on the bedspread. “It’s not that bad,” he says, but it’s not entirely the truth. The joint managed to burn a decent hole in the blue fabric, all the way to the down within.

“Don’t lie to me, Jonathan Byers.” Steve stares at the hole and whines hopelessly. “There goes basketball camp,” he sighs and slumps back down onto the bed.

“You can blame it on me,” offers Jonathan. “Your mom doesn’t like me anyway.”

Steve sits up straight. “No way! She’ll never let you stay over again!”

“Whatever, it’s up to you if you want to go to basketball camp or not.”

The corner of Steve’s mouth pulls up into a slow smirk. He leans forward suddenly and punches Jonathan on the arm.

“Ow!”

“Dick!” Steve grabs him by the shoulder and shakes him a little, then starts poking him in the side. “Just _have_ to be the good guy, don’t you?”

“Technically, this would make me the bad guy. In your mom’s eyes, anyway.”

“Yeah, well, you know what I mean. I just…” Steve trails off, eyes downcast. Jonathan follows his gaze and realizes Steve’s still holding on to his arm. His grip tightens briefly before he lets go. “You’re always there for me. Even just for stupid things like this. I don’t… I don’t know what I’d do without you.”

Jonathan is speechless. In all their years of friendship, he doesn’t think he’s ever heard anything so honest and vulnerable come out of Steve’s mouth. He looks so small, curling in on himself; like an injured bird. Jonathan just wants to wrap his arms around him – so he does that.

“I’m not going anywhere, Steve,” he whispers. “You’ll always have me.”

And at that moment, he means it.

**Author's Note:**

> Also I've recently started watching Queer as Folk so this might've been a teensy-bit inspired by Brian and Michael's relationship. 
> 
> kudos are cool, comments are cooler.  
> [ follow me on tumblr.](https://troublemint.tumblr.com/)


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